American Airlines pilots oust union leadership in election

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press


American Airlines pilots oust union leadership in election
From the Associated Press
June 21, 2007

Pilots at American Airlines, unhappy over pay and angry at company management, ousted their union's top officers and elected a slate of newcomers who promised to take a harder line against the nation's largest carrier.

Miami-based pilot Lloyd Hill defeated incumbent President Ralph Hunter by a ratio of more than 2 to 1 in a runoff. Challengers also unseated the Allied Pilots Assn.'s next two ranking officials.

Hill charged that Hunter and other union leaders were too cozy with company management. Hunter's post was clearly in jeopardy after he got only 25% of the vote during an election in May and barely made the runoff.

The first test for the new officers will come quickly — the union is in the early stages of negotiations for a new contract in which it expects large raises.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-american21jun21,1,1351004.story?coll=la-headlines-business

[zehnkatzen]

1. Too bad it's an Ownership Society...

...Because those pilots' owners are going to be pissed the heck off when they figure out the rabble have gotten uppity.

[Robbien]

2. They should change something.

They see other airline unions giving up benefits and then see airline CEO's and upper management get huge bonuses.

Airline keep crying about the need to cut costs. Airlines really mean they need to have increasing profits to be able to provide increasing bonuses to management and increasing dividends to stockholders. However saying that in union bargaining meetings doesn't go over to well in getting workers to cut their paychecks and work harder for less pay.